The commission threatened to take the party and Malema to the Equality Court within 10 days if they did not apologise and retract statements made during the party’s Western Cape elective conference last month.

"You must never be scared to kill. A revolution demands that, at some point, there must be killing because the killing is part of a revolutionary act,“ Malema told his supporters during the conference.

The commission said the statements amounted to hate speech.

“Due to the nature of some of the statements concerned, it was deemed necessary by the commission to file urgent legal proceedings for urgent interdictory relief. The commission then addressed a letter to the EFF and Mr Malema, providing them with an opportunity to retract the statements, apologise and give certain undertakings as to their future conduct in the hope that a positive response would obviate the need for urgent interim interdictory relief from the court.

“However, in light of the EFF and Mr Malema’s refusal to cooperate, the commission will now bring urgent court proceedings for urgent interim relief. This decision to litigate rather than investigate is made out of the Commission’s concern for what appear, prima facie, to be very serious threats of violence in the statements,” they said.

EFF national spokesperson Sinawo Thambo said the investigation was a "witch-hunt".

“We will meet them in court, and they will lose the same way AfriForum, which sponsored this matter with them, lost. They have allowed themselves to be used by AfriForum to reinvent a case they lost, namely Dubula Ibhunu, and their ranks are filled with people who have no appreciation of history and political speech,” Thambo said.

Source: Cape Times